


Gently rise and softly call

by Glowsquid



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Exhaustion, Gen, Happy Birthday Hunk (Voltron), Internal Monologue, Introspection, Post-Mission, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 11:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17406185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glowsquid/pseuds/Glowsquid
Summary: Hunk spends his first birthday in spacewhoops it's sad





	Gently rise and softly call

Hunk didn’t remember the last time he had been this tired. Every part of his body ached, his eyes burned and stung, and his brain was clouded with the need to sleep. His legs moved on autopilot, carrying him down the the too-long corridor that connected the Lions’ hangars to the rest of the ship. 

How he was still walking was a mystery. 

When he finally made it to the end and got a look at the others, he could see that the they weren’t looking any better than he was. Pidge was impossibly pale, making her freckles stand out sharply against her milky skin, and her shoulders were slumped. Lance’s eyes were dull, and Keith was listing a bit off-center where he stood. Shiro was yawning hard. Forty hours without sleep hadn't done them any favors. 

It had started with a simple distress call near the end of a long day of planning, training, and maintenance. This one came from the planet Yadn, where the Galra had begun ferrying its denizens offworld in slave transports. It was determined that the matter was simply too urgent to leave for later, and Allura fired up a wormhole immediately. 

It was never going to have been easy. Being attacked by ships known to be full of innocents made it almost impossible to defend yourself, and the Lions had been forced to split up. By the time they had finally been able to track down every ship full of prisoners, get them to safety, break up the blockade surrounding the planet, destroy the Galra bases on the surface, deal with the small fleet of backup sent by central command, and begin the process of returning every prisoner back to their proper continent to be reunited with their families, Hunk had been in the cockpit for twenty-two hours straight. 

It hadn't been fun. 

“Alright, guys,” Shiro said, voice deep and scratchy from exhaustion. “Allura said she’d wait to debrief in the morning. Or whenever we wake up, I guess.” Of course, mornings didn’t exist in space. “She said she’ll try to let us sleep as long as we need, but no guarantees. You know how this works by now.” He was cut off by a face-splitting yawn. Which in turn set off Keith, and then Lance. Hunk looked away and clamped his mouth shut.

There were sleepy murmurs of assent from the others, a few mumbled good nights and sleep wells, and each of them slowly staggered off to their separate rooms. 

He must have completely blacked out the walk to his quarters because suddenly he was standing in the middle of his room. He had to get his armor off. His hands moved on autopilot as he struggled with the clasps on his plate armor. Finally, he was down to the black undersuit. 

He only briefly considered finding some food and a water pouch before he went to sleep, but quickly abandoned the notion. He was hungry, sure, and definitely dehydrated, but he could eat later. Sleep would come first.

He didn't spend much time in the en suite bathroom. He emptied his bladder and swished his mouth out with some Altean mouthwash before collapsing into bed, not even bothering to put any pajamas on. 

He hated this. His body had limits, and he was just about past them, but he couldn't stop thinking about the people on the planet they had just left. They had been able to coordinate a force of the locals across the planet before they left that would continue routing the rest of the Galra forces and restoring the original infrastructure. The Galra wouldn't return right away, the people would be safe.

But they were probably tired too. 

Despite how long he had fought Hunk couldn't help but feel guilty. He had the nagging feeling that he should be helping, that he should be doing something. The people of Yadn needed Voltron, and they were only one planet in a galaxy of thousands. No matter who they saved or what they accomplished, there was always more. It was hard to feel that their situation wasn't completely hopeless. 

Hunk supposed it came with the job description. Even defenders of the universe had good days and bad days, right? Some days were good, that was true. Voltron was making a difference, even if it felt small. Hunk had saved people, and that knowledge gave him hope. He loved his team mates. He loved space. Some days- no. A lot of days were really good. 

Not all of them though. 

Sleep pulled at him strongly, but before he let himself drop off, he grabbed his watch from the cubby by his bed. Pidge had synched the date and time of Earth on all of their devices, so they would know how much time had passed and what day it was on Earth. (Sometimes that knowledge only hurt, but Hunk looked anyway). It had been a ritual of his before he fell asleep to look at his watch and think of home, think of what his Moms were doing, what his friends would be up to. Whose birthday or anniversary it was. (Whose birthday or anniversary he was missing).

The Earth clock read 09:34 01/13/19. 

January 13th. 

Huh.

That would make today his birthday. 

He wondered if his family would still celebrate. He wondered if they thought he was dead. 

Damn, he had so much apologizing to do when he got back.

If he got back. 

That thought kind of made Hunk want to cry, but he resisted. He has cried enough when he first became a Paladin of Voltron. He knew there was no shame in crying, in fact he welcomed the catharsis it brought, but he just didn't see the point anymore. He still felt the loss of being away from home acutely but mourning that absence didn’t benefit anything. There was nothing it could fix. Of course he was scared, he missed Earth so much, but dwelling on it brought the anxiety back and with it, panic. 

No one could afford his panic. 

So he allowed himself a few regretful thoughts of his mothers and their cat and their house, and of his friends at the Garrison and the familiarity of it all. He vowed he would come back, that he would find a way to save the world and be there for his family. Soon. Things would be okay. 

He turned over on the mattress and pulled the blankets up under his chin. His voice sounded croaky and odd in the empty room, but he thought it was appropriate to sing anyway.

“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, dear Hunk, happy birthday to me.”

It wasn't much of a birthday celebration. But it was what he had for now. 

He supposed it could always be worse.

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes. I didn't mean for it to be that sad when I started writing it, I promise. 
> 
> Written for Hunk Month!
> 
> Happy Birthday, Hunk! He deserves all the love in the world. Someone hold him.
> 
> Oh the title comes from [The Parting Glass.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zErnmLwsaSs)


End file.
